Starkwood
Starkwood was a rogue private military company and defense contractor based in northern Virginia, where Jonas Hodges and several of his associates (including Greg Seaton, John Quinn, Stokes and Doug Knowles) worked from during Day 7. Their compound covered 3 square miles and was comprised of 259 structures, including a runway, control tower, several warehouses and a firing range adjacent to Hodges' office. The organization allied with Sangalan warlord Benjamin Juma; in exchange for land in Sangala where they could freely develop the Prion variant, Starkwood armed and funded Juma and assisted him in his retaliatory strike against the U.S.. As it later turned out, Starkwood was one of many defense contractors part of the Prion variant cabal conspiracy. During Day 7, the organization and Hodges became very hostile with the U.S., going as far as to engage an FBI SWAT team in a standoff, but was dismantled and most of its key members arrested or killed after Jack Bauer and Tony Almeida sabotaged their plans. Before Redemption Starkwood began as defense consultants. But when the Pentagon started outsourcing millions of dollars to the company, they started recruiting ex-soldiers and assembling them into military forces. It also supplied arms to Sangala. The company was being investigated by Senator Blaine Mayer for illegal business transactions. Redemption During Redemption, Jonas Hodges and Starkwood provided General Benjamin Juma with weapons for a coup. Hodges also offered Colonel Iké Dubaku with mercenaries, but Dubaku said that the weapons would be enough. Starkwood was allowed to test weapons in Sangala in exchange. Hodges, with the help of his Secret Service mole Edward Vossler, dispatched two men -- Halcott and John Quinn -- to kill off a whistleblower who, through Hodges' associate Nichols' company, Sloane Kitridge, posed a threat of exposing Starkwood's brokering/aiding to Juma's regime (Nichols was employed by Hodges to launder untraceable money). The two subordinates killed and buried Whitley. Before Day 7 In order to prevent Roger Taylor, friend of Whitley, from picking up Whitley's trail and possibly discovering more information on Starkwood, another member of the Taylor administration conspiracy (partnered with Vossler) -- Brian Gedge -- killed Taylor and made it look like a suicide. Day 7 and Tom Chapman review possible US targets for their attacks.]] For the first half of Day 7, Starkwood aided Colonel Iké Dubaku in his urban plot to steal the CIP device and use it to hold cities hostage. To this end, Starkwood supplied Dubaku with Vossler, Gedge and Nichols. After Dubaku's plot failed, Benjamin Juma, using security specs provided to him by Hodges, initiated an armed takeover of the White House in retaliation for the US military's invasion of Sangala -- however, Taylor eventually locked herself in a safe room, stonewalling Juma. Juma called Hodges, who was at Starkwood with Greg Seaton. After being asked for a way to bypass the security, Hodges told Juma that he was on his own, and was not interested in offering any more help. After Juma threatened to destroy the Sangala-originating shipment of the Prion variant if Hodges did not help, Hodges acquiesced and, using the White House security specs, informed Juma of the location of Olivia Taylor who could be used to coerce the president out. Juma told Hodges his shipment would arrive on time. Despite this, Juma and the rest of his unit were killed during the attack thanks to the efforts of Bill Buchanan, Aaron Pierce and Jack Bauer, and the President and her daughter survived. In the aftermath of this, Hodges and Seaton dispatched John Quinn, professional Starkwood assassin, to murder both Ryan Burnett, an arrested member of the conspiracy who knew information about Hodges, and Blaine Mayer, who had been investigating Starkwood. Quinn murdered both of his targets, but was killed by Bauer shortly afterwards. To retrieve the biological weapons, which were due at the Port of Alexandria, Hodges sent a well-armed and high-manpower mercenary team led by Stokes, while he met with the Board of Directors. During the meeting held at 10:15pm, Doug Knowles questioned Hodges decision to defy the government, but Hodges dismissed him as he ordered the directors to begin defying and refusing to cooperate with the government. Meanwhile, Stokes, despite some resistance by Jack and Tony, was able to successfully land the weapon in Starkwood's base. Shortly after 11:00pm, Stokes arrived at the Starkwood base with the bioweapon, where Hodges met him. After Tom Chapman verified it, he took it away for preparation. Since they had gotten Tony Almeida as a hostage at the port, Hodges orchestrated a way to deceive him into revealing the FBI involvement so far. Greg Seaton faked "killing" Stokes, who'd previously been interrogating Tony, and told him he wanted to help. They moved to Seaton's office from where they called the FBI Headquarters. After Seaton arranged a presidential pardon, he led Tony to a warehouse where allegedly the weapon was being held. Tony gave this information to Larry Moss, who got into the compound via helicopter with a full tactical team, but upon entering the empty warehouse, they realized they had been tricked by Seaton. As they organized to check every building in Starkwood, Stokes arrived with a group of mercenaries and threatened to shoot if they did anything. Seaton simply pretended to have been a defector. Hodges, who was with Chapman on another side of the compound preparing the weapon for their attack, went and met with Larry accusing him and the government of persecution. Claiming that they hadn't found the weapons in the warehouse, he repeated Stokes threat of firing at them if they didn't retire. Larry acquiesced, but Tony managed to slip into a warehouse as they did, meeting with Starkwood's chairman, Doug Knowles. Unlike Seaton, Knowles was a genuine defector as he was against Hodge's extremism in defying the government. Jack had contacted Knowles who had agreed to help them, and he led Tony to the warehouse where he thought the weapons might be. While Knowles distracted some guards, Tony entered the warehouse. Knowles was taken by the guards and led into his office on Hodges' orders. He met with him awhile later trying to find why he was in the premises. When he realized Knowles would probably betray him, Hodges killed him in the Starkwood lobby. In the meantime, Tony confronted two guards and disguised himself to enter the basement where the weapons were being held. These basement floors weren't present on the Starkwood schematics that Jack and Renee had. After making visual contact with the weapon, Tony sent a picture for Jack to confirm and President Taylor authorized the air strike on the compound. However, it was aborted when Hodges himself contacted her and threatened to use the weapons if she didn't meet with him. Hodges had Chapman load the prion variant into Python missiles that were locked on several US eastern coast cities. While Tony was investigating the compound, he saw Stokes and Robert Galvez pumping RP-7 rocket fuel, which is used for missile launchers, into some tanks. After President Taylor indirectly authorized Jack Bauer to let him handle it, he took Stokes hostage and rigged the tanks with C-4. Stokes, however, managed to activate the alarm and Chapman activated the launch sequence; thanks to the hesitance of a technician who initially refused to cooperate fearing a false alarm, Tony was able to detonate the explosives before the missiles flew into the air. When this happened, Larry and his tactical teams stormed the compound securing everything. Larry commented that he didn't believe most of the men were aware of the missiles, meaning that only the top brass of soldiers were. At 1:47am, Galvez shot two FBI agents and escaped the compound with a canister of the Prion variant; he had defected to working under Tony Almeida and the rest of the Prion variant cabal. Hodges was arrested for his crimes, but as he was taken away, he hinted to the existence of the cabal commenting that he was "a small cog in a very big machine". Allison was forced to grant Hodges a faked death (so as to prevent retaliation against his family) and a lifestyle, in exchange for him being a confidential informant. Olivia Taylor, however, had other ideas; enraged at how the architect behind her brother's death was being left off the hook, she, with the assistance of Martin Collier, dispatched a hitman to take out Hodges. After Day 7 Starkwood closed down following the events of Day 7, forcing one of its former employees, Gabriel, to go into business for himself. Background information and notes * The overhead view of the Starkwood compound shown on "Day 7: 11:00pm-12:00am" is based on the Camarillo Airport in California where this episode was filmed. * Stokes identified Tony Almeida as an agent of David Emerson's crew when they encountered one another in Day 7: 10:00pm-11:00pm, implying that Emerson was affiliated with Starkwood, which would make sense considering how Emerson was helping Dubaku and Nichols. Appearances Category:Day 7 * Category:Locations Category:Businesses Category:Organizations Category:Terrorist organizations Category:Defense contractors